News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-04-07
THE BLIND INVENTOR.
He Works with His Fingers Instead
of His Eyes.

| Herr Franz Fortelka, former lieu
tenant in the Austrian army, during the
first campaign in Bosnia, received {
shot in his right eye, which destroyed
the optic nerve, and indirectly so affect
ed the left eye that the poor officer, nov
only twenty-eight years old, has beer
for the last nine years totally blind
But without the use of his eyesight this
ingenious man has invented during
these years not only anew magazine rifle,
but also two machines for the anti-oXida
ton of iron, steel and other metals at 6
cost which must be called ridicu
lousy small; further an apparatus fol-
automatical mapping, a new micrometer,
a new sort OF gunpowder, not to speak
of smaller inventions which found then
way into the lesser industrial establish
III ents of Vienna, and saved the inventor
from starvation, lis his greater discover
les, far from bringing him money as yet,
necessitate an outlay which he can only
afford by extreme personal privations.
''My rifle, D." complained the unfortunate
inventor, ''would have long been in the
hands of the British Government had
the advance money which l obtained
from a private person in London been
more than twenty pounds, which did not
suffice for the wages of the one work
man who assists me and the necessary
material. Now at last it is finished, and,
though | may fall into the fault of all
inventors, consider it the best rifle ex-
listing, being without the disadvantage
of other machine rifles, and with many
advantages over them. I can prove by
my Austrian and German patents of
some five years ago that the straight
pull system, which distinguishes every
modern ride and in itself, without the
the machine, secures the double effect
has been my invention. Upon this and
upon other appropriations in the same
line by different successful inventors I
do not lay any stress. There is my new
rifle, which, in short, has the following
advantages: It can be used as a single
loader even with an attached magazine,
the cartridges are not thrown into the
magazine in loose form, but lie one
above the other, without the possibility
of placing them wrongly, the magazine
can be attached or not at will, all parts
are solid, no spiral spring exists in the
rife, the price of my weapon with roy
atty and everything else Will be under
two pounds. Every old system, with
the exception of Werndls, can be used
for transformation into my rifle, at a
cost of eight or ten shillings-less in
case of Gras, Mauser, Berdan or Beau
mont, and something more in the case
of the Henry Martini"
"And how can you make any inven-
ton, especially such complicated one
Is a rifle, without, unfortunately, being
able to see the separate parts, and how
Ire your devices carried out by the
81 see with my fingers, and not in
one single case have they deceived me.
It's really curious that when great or
minute measurements are in question,
hose who see with their eyes are wrong,
md l, with the use of my fingers, am
light. The models for my machines
lgainst oxidation of metals were en-
irely made by myself from carved wood
With the help of string, wire and bread
r1mb. l am now devising a very COM
)lIcated electric aDDaratIlS "